Do you remember brands like Remington and Olivetti? Or, if you’re under 30, it’s better to ask, have you ever heard of these brands? Chances are you’ve heard of them by now or seen the typewriters they used to make. Thus hangs the story of how great brands can rise and fall as the shifting sands of technology tear businesses apart, creating new winners and losers.

As the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution sweeps the worlds of economics, business and more, it’s best to reveal the moral of the story before you tell it: disrupt yourself rather than be rude. And it’s better to feel some rewarding pain. Disruption by forces beyond your control.

The chips are down for Intel. The microchip maker has been essentially steamrolled by Nvidia’s rise in AI growth. It calls for a Bollywood-style flashback to the days when Intel was steamrolling Texas Instruments (TI) and Motorola, the world’s early integrated circuit (IC) manufacturers.

The elephant could dance, after all

Intel recalled a semi-autobiography of Guru Dutt, Paper flowers (Paper Flowers) in which a filmmaker falls on bad days after an unusual period. A chipmaker caught in Nvidia’s surge could take a lesson or two from IBM, whose famed adaptability was captured in a book titled Who says elephants can dance?? The author, Louis Gerstner Jr., was CEO of IBM during a tumultuous period of restructuring.

In order to understand the driving forces behind such change, it is best to remember two things: some technological changes may appear to be extensions of an old one, but in practice they are changes in the paradigm of generation. What we end up with is not an improved product but a whole new category of products or services that leads to the emergence of new brands that often kill the leaders.

IBM dominated the market with large mainframe computers and proprietary software until the 1980s. But it accepted computer brands like Compaq to make small computers as “IBM compatibles” to promote accessibility and gain access to a wider market. Later, it embedded Microsoft’s popular disk operating system software. DOS, which then spawned Microsoft’s Windows OS, refers to several closely related operating systems that dominated the IBM PC-compatible market between 1981 and 1995 as PCs (personal computers) replaced typewriters. took place, including short-lived electronic typewriters around the world. The PC revolution was enabled by ‘Intel Inside’ microchips. The combination of ‘Wintel’ (Windows + Intel) supplanted Apple’s Mac as the planet’s ubiquitous desktop, and later, laptop PCs increasingly connected to networks.

How did IBM and Microsoft survive?

A hard look will tell you that while IBM and Microsoft successfully reinvented themselves, Intel never really got there. The current AI revolution has left it in a tough spot in the semiconductor stakes, a reversal of fortunes from its PC revolution days.

This article is for industry watchers and insiders alike because AI is just getting started: don’t mistake a paradigm (framework) shift that creates a new ecosystem to improve an old product line. will give New-age partnerships, services, regulations and laws will dramatically change the landscape, requiring industry elephants to dance innovatively or swoop like bees.

Olivetti and Remington were typewriter brands that were killed off by the rise of PCs. As a result, you rarely hear about careers or job titles like “stenographer” in an age when data scientists and software engineers conjure up new career horizons. In fact, software engineers are also threatened by AI models, as are basic writers or graphic artists. You have to get better at the old game, and in addition, learn how to play the new game to stay ahead of the curve.

IBM, which has since sold its PC business to China’s Lenovo, is now focusing on providing businesses with hybrid cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI) solutions, while Microsoft, which once PC software was created, today is a modern player. Its difficult but fruitful partnership with OpenAI, whose ChatGPT chatbot generates human-like conversational responses to user questions;

Decreasing numbers

The market data clearly shows how Intel has fallen, reminding one of brands like early smartphone maker Nokia and web content company Yahoo, both revolutionaries in the technology-driven ecosystem. Failed to respond adequately to changes.

Apple, like IBM and Microsoft, has embraced change well, and has, in fact, created new categories that keep its brand alive. It has moved from the Mac (desktop) to the iPod (music player) to the iPhone (smartphone with a content ecosystem) to the Apple Watch (wearable computer).

Nvidia has stolen what could have been Intel’s thunder if only the Windows-era giant saw a new threat from AI and turned it into an opportunity. Intel’s revenue for the 12 months to June 2024 rose just 1.99 percent year-over-year to $55.11 from $54.22 billion, while Nvidia Corp.’s fiscal 2024 revenue of $60.9 billion is up 126 percent from last year’s $26.97 billion.

The market capitalization of these two corporate brands shows the gap between growth and decline, even though their annual revenues are comparable in absolute terms. Intel’s market value on stock exchanges is $104.4 billion, while Nvidia’s is $3.61 trillion. Nvidia’s market value is now about 35 times that of Intel. Let it sink in.

A tech tonic shift

New-age data centers are adopting Nvidia’s AI-powered microchips favored by sophisticated consumer and gaming industries. Intel’s data center revenue is trending downward. While Intel faces the music, Nvidia, which used to be a graphics processing unit (GPU) maker that played second fiddle to Intel in the PC era, is now the leader of the AI-age. Cloud computing companies such as Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure are among its contributors as critical AI infrastructure grows in size and scale.

Intel is an elephant that could not learn the steps necessary to dance. The tectonic industry shift shows how AI is a bus that can’t be missed. It should better be seen as a new category that gives rise to a new ecosystem that needs to be understood from scratch. It’s a leap, not a jump.

The good news is that AI is also creating new opportunities. That will be another story.

(Madhavan Narayanan is a senior editor, writer and columnist with over 30 years of experience, having worked for Reuters, The Economic Times, Business Standard and Hindustan Times after starting at The Times of India Group.)